Man of the House: A Dark Bad Boy Romance(39)

I got Marty on the phone right away, and he assured me that the security cameras didn’t show anyone entering my room since I left in the morning. He double-checked all of the logs and couldn’t see any access from any codes that Cox may have known the password for. I told him to send me all of the data and hung up the phone.

Distraught, I left my room. I didn’t know what the f*ck to do. Every time I thought it was as bad as it could get, somehow they made it even worse. Without my papers and notebooks, I couldn’t really work. Years of ideas, data, and hard calculations had been stolen, along with important other documents, stuff I didn’t want Bruce and his bastards to see. I had a life outside of Valor, and what I did with my own personal money was none of their concern.

It was all gone now. I didn’t really realize where I was going until I entered my music room. I poured myself a double whisky, put on a Bowie record, and sat on the sofa, staring at the wall.

I got through the entire A-side of Station to Station, doing nothing but drinking and listening. My glass was half empty by the time the last note of the last song placed and the tone arm slid across the dead wax. I listened as the turntable’s mechanical parts clicked into place and lifted the tone arm up, carried it across the record, and gently lowered it down in the run-in grooves to play the A-side over again.

I sighed. That was the damn problem with old technologies. There was no way for me to just listen to the whole record. I had to get up and flip the stupid thing, and I didn’t feel like getting up.

Station to Station’s piano started, followed by that bass line, and I started to lose myself again. Just after it started, I heard a knock at the door, which jolted me from my funk.

Emily stepped inside, not bothering to wait for a response.

“I thought you’d be in here,” she said. “You know this music is really loud, right?”

I laughed. “Didn’t notice.”

“What are you doing?”

“Listening. Wondering why I bother with records.”

“What do you mean?” She walked over toward me, gorgeous and sexy.

“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head.

“What is this?” she asked, gesturing at the turntable.

“It’s David Bowie. Station to Station.”

“Oh. I’ve heard of that.”

“It’s good,” I said, warming up to my subject. “Bowie said that he was on so much coke and shit that he couldn’t remember recording it at all. His rhythm guitarist, Carlos Alomar, said something similar.”

She laughed, walking over and sitting down next to me. “I didn’t know Bowie was big into drugs.”

“He was for a little while. I think everyone was in the ‘70s. He also got into the occult.”

“Occult? Like, witches and wizards?”

“Sort of. He was into Kabbalah at the time, which is like a Jewish magic I guess. Apparently, Station to Station was Bowie’s grandest magical ritual, but I don’t know about that.”

“What kind of magic was he trying to make with this?” she asked, laughing.

“Who knows? Probably trying to summon more coke.”

“Oh, of course, the coke demons.”

“Coke angels, you mean.”

“Of course. Coke angels.”

We laughed together and leaned back into the couch as Bowie sang, It’s not the side effects of the cocaine. I’m thinking that it must be love.

“Are you okay?” I asked her finally.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“I won’t let those bastards get close to you again. I promise.”

“I know.” She sighed. “I don’t think they wanted to hurt me. Probably just wanted to scare me.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe it was just a distraction.”

“Distraction?”

I groaned as the memory of my empty room came back to me. “Someone stole a lot of important papers from my room today.”

“What?” she asked, suddenly alert.

“I’m assuming it was Cox. Probably happened right around the time that I was grabbing you.”

“No way,” she said.

“He probably had a backup security code. Marty is working on it.”

“Shit. Carter. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine. I’ll survive.”

“Still.” She looked down at her hands and I realized what I had done.

“Shit, Emily. It’s not your fault.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No,” I said seriously, leaning toward her. I took her chin and tipped her face toward me. “Not at all.”

“I’m your weakness.”

“Hardly.” I grinned. “I don’t have any weaknesses.”

“Don’t joke. I’m the weapon they’re using against you.”

“You’re not a weapon. If you weren’t here, they would have found something else.”

“I’m hurting you.”

“They’re hurting me,” I said fiercely. “Through all this f*cking shit, you’re the only good thing.”

She stared at me for a second and then I kissed her, hard and passionate. I knew even as I kissed her that it was true, what I had just said. It was actually truer than she realized.